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Colonials, Tudors and, Soon, a Casino

YOO-HOO This block of 86th Street, near 133rd Avenue, is in Tudor Village, an enclave where prices range from about $400,000 to $600,000, generally more than for a similar-size house elsewhere in Ozone Park.Credit
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

A LOT has changed in Ozone Park, a neighborhood in southern Queens, since George Russo grew up there in the 1960s.

Back then, he said, the neighborhood teemed with German, Irish and Italian immigrants. Italian bakeries and butcher shops were commonplace.

Now those groups have smaller numbers, and many of their shops have been replaced by stores catering to the tastes of recent arrivals from Guyana, Colombia and Mexico, among other countries.

“This has always been a place for relatively new immigrant families trying to get a foothold and assimilate,” said Mr. Russo, 57, who has lived in Ozone Park for most of his life and runs a catering hall called Villa Russo just outside of the neighborhood. “What’s happened recently is no different.”

It is being built at the Aqueduct race track, the 192-acre expanse straddling Ozone Park and South Ozone Park. Called Resorts World New York and developed by Genting New York, the casino will have 4,525 video slot machines.

It is not clear what its presence will mean for the neighborhood. Many residents are hopeful that it will bring jobs and money.

Last month, the casino announced it would hire 1,150 permanent workers, 350 more than it had originally estimated. Hiring has started, the casino said, adding that local workers would be taken on before others.

“It should be an economic engine for our community,” said Mr. Russo, who since 1986 has lived in a colonial that cost around $190,000. He estimated that it was now worth about $450,000.

For decades the neighborhood has been largely working-class, a slightly downscale area compared with its southern neighbor, Howard Beach. The pizazz anticipated from the new casino is not a quality already much in evidence. Off the main thoroughfares, like Rockaway Boulevard and Cross Bay Boulevard, the streets are mostly serene. Noise, what there is of it, comes from the planes taking off and landing nearby at Kennedy International Airport.

The casino could therefore have all the more impact, especially if it brought a significant increase of traffic to the side streets.

“If the traffic cuts through the center of the neighborhood, that’ll hurt,” said Jerry Fink, the owner of Jerry Fink Real Estate, who has sold property in the neighborhood for 14 years.

Like the city as a whole, Ozone Park has had a sharp decrease in major crimes in the last 20 years. In the 106th Precinct, which covers much of the neighborhood, including the area around Aqueduct, crime has fallen 77 percent over that period.

Eric A. Ulrich, who grew up in the neighborhood and now represents it on the City Council, says he expects 30,000 visitors a day to Aqueduct once the casino opens. Well aware of the residents’ concerns, he has been in talks with the precinct to prepare for the visitors.

Not long ago, he said, “there was a general feeling that the neighborhood was in decline. But now I really see things changing for the better.”

WHAT YOU’LL FIND

There is general agreement that neighborhood is circumscribed by Atlantic Avenue to the north and North Conduit Avenue to the south. The eastern boundary is usually recognized as 108th Street — give or take a few blocks in either direction — and the western section of Aqueduct. The Brooklyn border makes the line to the west.

Roughly 50,000 people live in an area a little over a square mile in size. Whites remain prevalent, according to recent census figures; there are also large numbers of Hispanics and Asians from countries including Colombia, Bangladesh and the Philippines.

The neighborhood, its stability enhanced by being largely owner-occupied, has a family-friendly air, with play sets and toys in yards. The real estate is mostly single- and two-family detached colonials on lots large enough for a backyard and parking.

An architectural exception is the area known as Tudor Village, in the southwestern section. As the name implies, it is filled with brick Tudor-style houses, many of them attached. Another enclave, Centerville, lies in the southeast corner, near Aqueduct, and is filled with slightly larger homes. The prices in both Tudor Village and Centerville tend to be higher than in the rest of the neighborhood.

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Between Tudor Village and Centerville is another anomaly for the neighborhood, Magnolia Court, a gated community built in the last decade. Prices of the 48 condominiums in the complex — duplexes and simplexes outfitted with granite countertops and other upscale touches — ranged from about $375,000 to $550,000. Magnolia Court was developed by the Ervolino Group, whose chief executive, Ronald Ervolino, grew up in Ozone Park and neighboring Howard Beach and still has family in the area.

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House prices have fallen as much as 25 percent, brokers say, since the height of the market several years ago.

Many listings are short sales — a factor that is keeping prices down, said John Rodriguez, the broker-owner of Exit Realty Central, an agency in the neighborhood. “It’s definitely a buyer’s market,” was his assessment.

Typical one-family houses, Mr. Rodriguez said, range from $375,000 to about $450,000. Two-families range from $475,000 to $600,000. A recent search of properties for sale found nearly 90 single-family houses and more than 100 multifamilies.

Homes in the southern part of the neighborhood, including Tudor Village and Centerville, near Aqueduct, have a slightly higher price tag — about $400,000 to $600,000.

But even with the slowness in sales, said Mr. Fink of Jerry Fink Realty, the rental market is active, and he is among those expecting things to pick up after the casino opens. Two-bedroom rentals are priced around $1,400 a month, he said, and three-bedrooms run $1,500 or more.

Liberty Avenue and Cross Bay Boulevard are lined with retail stores, both small shops and chains like Modell’s and Marshalls. Residents congregate at the restaurants here,among them Esquire Diner and Aldo’s II Pizzeria.

Among local schools is Public School 64, which has about 650 enrolled in kindergarten through fifth grade. Last year, 50 percent of fourth graders met standards in reading and 64 percent in math.

At Public School 65, which serves the same age groups, 46 percent of fourth graders met standards in reading and 54 percent in math.

Junior High School 210 has nearly 2,100 students. Last year, 45 percent of its eighth graders met standards in reading and 45 percent in math.

John Adams High School sits on the eastern side of the neighborhood, near Aqueduct. Graduation rates there have increased recently, to 61 percent, just below the 63 percent citywide average. SAT averages last year were 424 in math, 399 in reading and 404 in writing, versus 462, 439 and 434 citywide.

Still, many residents eschew public transportation in favor of their cars, a choice made easier by plentiful on-street parking. The Belt Parkway, along the neighborhood’s southern border, provides easy access to many areas around the city.

THE HISTORY

In the late 1940s, Jack Kerouac wrote his first novel and plotted his travels for “On the Road” in his family’s walk-up apartment on Cross Bay Boulevard.

Pat Fenton, a writer who has tried to secure landmark status for the building, said Kerouac also spent time working in the drugstore on the building’s ground floor and frequented a bar across the street that is now called Glen Patrick’s Pub.

A version of this article appears in print on June 5, 2011, on Page RE8 of the New York edition with the headline: Colonials, Tudors and, Soon, a Casino. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe